Inland Croatia News

Welcome to our blog, all about life and living in the heartland of Croatia.

I’m Keith and my wife’s name is Michele (aka “Welly-Shelly”) and we have been living in central Croatia for nearly seven years now, so we thought it was about time we set this blog in motion and keep our families and friends up to date about what we are doing and what is happening here.  We will try to run an informative and entertaining blog, away from our business website (www.inlandcroatia.com) where we can explain and enlighten you all about why we are here, what we get up to and our plans for the future.  Please feel free to comment, post, complain, nag, suggest or ask anything you want to know, just keep it clean and in the spirit of goodwill and fun.

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Our Story.

We lived in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire just north of London and worked long hours, never seeming to spend enough time together. Our money went nowhere other than paying ever-increasing bills for falling services and standards. We lived in a nice house, had nice cars and good holidays but something was missing and our lives were not going in the direction we wanted, so we decided to make some radical changes.  In the previous couple of years our cars had been damaged or stolen, neighbouring properties had been burgled and groups of young kids freely roamed the streets at night…….and Welwyn was considered to be a nice place!

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We had CCTV, razor topped fencing, an alarm system and two bloody great dogs and all to make us feel what?  Safe?  We decided we wanted to live somewhere without ”hoodies” roaming the streets, litter everywhere, grumpy neighbours and the need to lock our house or car at night. Somewhere we would have the time to just relax and try other things like keep chickens, grow our own fruit and vegetables and to enjoy our hobbies of reading, writing, painting etc. Sounded simple enough on paper but proved to be an almost impossible dream in the UK society we knew back then?    T.V Programes about moving abroad had started to catch our interest and we spent the next year asking ourselves “IF” we could really make it happen and “IF” we really wanted to do it?

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The thought of moving to another country was exciting but also a very scary prospect,   “if we don’t try we will never know……” became a regular saying in our household.  By late 2003 the bug had really set in and we found ourselves thinking about little else. We began travelling to different places around Europe and almost set our hearts on Portugal, but that’s another story…………. Considerations such as logistics then came into play, Michele does not like flying so chosing somewhere easily accessible by car became a priority. We drew a circle on the map and started crossing places off. It had to be somewhere warm, so anywhere south was added to our list and after looking at all the other obvious contenders like Spain, (Portugal), France, Slovenia and even Bulgaria we decided that Italy might be ideal. In late 2004 we bought a caravan, closed the business, sold the house, put our stuff into storage, said our goodbyes and set off.

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We left the UK in early November 2004 and headed South from Dover with our two dogs (Jazz and Soul) who had been chipped and inoculated and passports prepared. The journey across Europe was easy, the motorways are empty and the service stations a delight. Towards the end of our second day the scenery though the Alps was stunning and a very welcome sight after 20 hours on the road, but this was where our journey took an unexpected and ultimately fortunate turn.  Having no Sat-Nav and relying on Michele to map read we somehow managed to miss the motorway exit for Italy and carried straight on …………………towards Croatia. The signposts reading “HR  Zagreb” were a mystery to us but with no exits to “Italy” in sight we kept on going, it was meant to be an adventure after all.

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Having crossed the border via Slovenia we arrived in this unknown country called Croatia, we found a campsite and settled down for a well-earned break. Our campsite was by the sea; a lovely place for us to stop moving and which gave us a sunny and warm November welcome to this strange place. We stayed by the beach for several weeks, exploring up and down the coastline enjoying empty roads and tourist free resorts and restaurants wherever we went, it was lovely. We both had a very good feeling about Croatia right from the start. The place was beautiful, the weather lovely and the people friendly and welcoming, everything we had been looking for so we decided to stay a while longer and investigate further.

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After a few weeks exploring we started looking around for property with several (so-called) Real Estate agents  and quickly realised that finding what we wanted, a farm with an acre or so of land, was way out of our price range anywhere near the coast. We were very disappointed to say the least and after a few days decided to make one more effort before heading off to Italy and so turned our attention more inland. Our drives into the heartland started soon after and it didn’t take long for us to agree that we had found exactly the sort of landscape we were after, lush green fields, rolling hills, mountains, forests, valleys, lakes and rivers; everywhere we went seemed to be better than the previous day and why we had never heard about this place before was a constant mystery to us. We spent the next few weeks travelling back and forwards from the coast and on one of these trips we ended up near the city of  Zagreb and spent a lovely couple of days just touring around and enjoying the sights. It was here that we met our first real Croatian family (Jelka and Branco Musac) and looking back now count that meeting as one of the best encounters we have ever had. They welcomed us into their home and took us around seeing places we would never had found ourselves, including the village in which now live. They showed us a side to Croatia that the tourists don’t usually get to see and an introduction to the genuine friendliness of the people and the Croatian way of life we now love so much. We havent forgotten how important that first meeting was and we now try to do the same for any newcomers that we meet.

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We soon found our ideal property, a run down old farmhouse with several acres of land and a great view across a valley, which we bought in the spring of 2005. We spent the next year on renovating the property ourselves, bringing in labour and specialist contractors as needed and while it was very hard work we are now enjoying the rewards. That first year in Croatia was spent working on the house, learning the language and generally finding our way around. Looking back it’s hard for us now to now remember just how much we got done in those first few months, weve almost forgotten how frustrated and despondent we were at times and how quietly satisfied and elated we were at others. Today its hard to remember what our “plastic” lives were like back in the UK, those people seem like strangers to us now. We consider ourselves very lucky to have missed that turn on the motorway, I call it luck Michele calls it fate, but however you think of it we are truly glad it happened to us.

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Coming from a building design and construction background, the process of tearing apart and rebuilding the house was relatively straightforward for me and it seemed like all my experience and training had finally come to pay off. The reality of doing it in another country however was something quite different! Different terms, different materials, different time frames and just different “ways-of-doing-things” all had to be learnt again. The original plan to have the house “livable” in six months ended up taking us just over a year before we could move out of the caravan and into our (still not quite finished) new home. We had some good luck along the way and made some silly mistakes at other times, but rebuilding your own home to such a degree has to be one of the most rewarding things you can do in your life, I now have the pleasure of helping others achieve the same goal.

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We still have someway to go yet to finish everything and the drive to do so does start to wane over time. “It’s nice to just sit back and enjoy what you have for a while” as I keep telling Michele, but she knows it will all get done eventually!

Having moved into the house we then turned our attention to earning a living in Croatia and we set up our Real Estate and design business (www.inlandcroatia.com) where we now help others to find their ideal property here and with any renovation or building work they might need.  We never intended to get into the Real Estate business but with so many cheap property opportunities presenting themselves and now with some experience behind us it was a no brainer really. Now every month we get to meet new people, many with a similar tale to our own who are also thinking of living abroad permanently, others who have heard about how lovely the countryside is and just want to buy a holiday home here; meeting new people is by far the best part of the job.

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Moving abroad and living in any country is never going to be easy so we try to make it as painless and easy as we can for anyone we meet doing the same, just having a friendly voice at the end of the phone can be a lifesaver at times. There are many aspects to consider such as language, culture, lifestyle and bureaucracy that need to be carefully thought through and it’s not for everyone. Croatia is far from perfect, it is a relatively young country and still finding its way and place in Europe. Everyone moans about the bureaucracy (including Croatians) and the slower pace of life really can take some getting used to. We were looking for all the things we described above and Croatia suit us down to the ground, as it does many of the ex pats here.

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We are woken by the birds singing each morning not car doors slamming, we grow a lot of our own food and our shopping bills are minimal. Our crystal clear water comes from our own well and doesn’t contain any chemicals. Theres little traffic on the roads, parking is easy wherever you go and petrol is still only 85kn per litre (about 90p). We can’t get fast-food delivered anymore (good) so Michele has turned into a really excellent chef . Theres no crime to talk of, the air is clean and all of the people we meet each day always have time for a coffee and a chat, that’s the way of life here.  Probably most important of all we now have more time together each day and the slower pace of life is a luxury we truly appreciate. When I think back to how many hours I wasted on the M25 motorway each day……Arggghhhhh.

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With all of the turmoil and problems in the world today, we count ourselves very lucky that we live in a safe and peaceful environment surrounded by nice people and friends and having time to enjoy our limited time on this planet.

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If you are reading this and thinking you might like to do the same then our advice would be to carefully consider all the angles, expect it to be difficult and then to go for it;  it may just be the best decision you ever made. If you are a couple or family then you really must BOTH/ALL  be committed, half an attempt will only get you half way. We are just normal, everyday people, if we can do it then anyone can.

 Feel free to post a comment, send us an email or give us a call, we always have time for a chat with like minded souls.